Loading ...girl’s best friend
Back to business as usual, three morning Speedballs a week and some partnership bidding with Judi (who, just for the record, really did go over 20,000 masterpoints when she won the USWBC with Sylvia Moss in May — not 15,000 as reported by the league in Vegas and the most recent Bulletin). Still sitting east-west each and every time, and still can’t figure out why.
And diamonds, still a girl’s best friend. Another crazy slam hand this morning, take a look. Playing the dreaded matchpoints, I picked up:
S QT6
H AK3
D AQJ65
C K5
In first chair, Partner opened 1D and I was ready to bid 2D (inverted, showing limit or better in Diamonds) when righty came in with 3C. I love knowing what we play: 3D is diamonds, competitive; 4C is limit or better; I picked 4D, keycard for Diamonds. Lefty bid 4H and Partner bid 6D. Is there any doubt about what to do now?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I have a lot of doubt as to what to do. I really don’t know what 6D is since there are lots of other bids one could make without foreclosing slam.
I would think partner ought give their dopi or depo response depending on your methods. Maybe this shows 2 without the queen and a void in clubs. But I would think 6C ought show that hand.
Can partner have AKxxx, x, Kxxxxx,x and be hoping that if off an ace there si no spade loser?
I am bidding 7D because I have so much extra but I am not sure I understand the auction.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Bob, you’re the best. I was on pretty shaky ground too — we’ve never discussed this dopi/depo thing at all, but Judi and I did have a couple of really interesting slam bidding situations where George and others made a strong case that I should have raised Partner’s jump from 6 to 7.
The second one you’ve already seen (the hand we didn’t bid 7D from a couple of days ago). The first was during the Pair game, when Judi opened 1S and I held AKxxx / x / x / AKxxxx. I started with 2NT and she bid 6NT. Of course 7S was cold — and she made 7 in 6NT, but everybody I know said I should’ve bid 7S.
After both of those hands we agreed that Partner has to be able to jump to a slam without fear of getting raised. Jumps to slam end all auctions, right? So this morning, I thought long and hard about raising 6D to 7, but passed instead.
Judi had A98 / J / KT9872 / AJ2; she made 6D on a Heart lead and lost to all the declarers (only 1 actually bid 7D) who got a Club lead and got to win the Jack at trick one.
Later, when we went over the boards, I mentioned how I’d been in some agony about whether I was supposed to raise her THIS time. “It’s matchpoints. You’re supposed to correct to 6N, protecting your King of Clubs. There’s nothing else to think about.”
August 1st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Stacy, I must be missing something on the 6D hand. You make exactly 6 with or without a club lead. There is nothing to pitch on the third club so u have the same 12 tricks in diamonds with or without that lead. You have 1 spade loser after pitching a spade on a heart. Pitching a spade from dummy as well on a club still leaves one spade loser.
I NEVER leap to slam on hands where my partner is unlimited unless it is a situation where I cannot make some bid to get further information that would be helpful.
On the auction 1S-2N 6N I have no clue what 6N is. It sounds like some sort of bid she doesn’t really have and is hoping you make it since they need to make a blind lead. But even then one would think 6S would be the bid. Did she think 2N was quantitative and not s spade raise?
I prefer the less deceptive auction leading to the best spot.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
“It’s easy on a club or a diamond lead,” Judi said. “Squeeze the guy with Queen-third of Hearts and the King of Spades. My guy led a heart and broke it up.”
3C bidder held Jxx / xx / x / QT87643; 4H bidder had Kxxx / QT98742 / x / x.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:25 pm
The hand you typed you have J of hearts opposite AKx. So as long as the club bidder holds 3 hearts with one bigger than the x in dummy there is no squeeze, Not to mention the Q of hearts or K of spades could be with the clubs.
Over 4H she could have passed (2nd step of dopi) showing 0 or 3 keys and then u could have bid 5C asking for Kings and guaranteeing all the keyards and she would have bid 6D saying she had no kings and u would have played 6D which is the right contract.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
15,000 did seem pretty slim for Judi’s career! New figure more like it; congrats, Judi.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:55 am
My 2 cents:
If you had a DOPI or DIPS agreement, 6 Diamonds sounds like 1 key and a useful void (maybe I’m old-fashioned,) something like: KJxx / QJTx / KTxxx / - or AKJx / QJTx / Txxxx / - in which case 6 Diamonds is high enough.
Absent such an agreement then I agree that you should correct 6 Diamonds to 6NT at MATCHPOINTS. Playing with a partner who would jump to 6NT directly over Jacoby 2NT, and knowing that you don’t have a specific agreement about what to do over interference, I wouldn’t play her for one of the (VERY specific) example hands and realize that 6 Diamonds is unlikely to be the highest-scoring spot. Surely 6NT rates to be a better contract at this form of scoring (with virtually the entire field expected to bid SOME slam.)
Rather than beat yourself up over whether you should have bid on over 6 Diamonds, though, I’d just make an agreement about what your bids show when they interfere with your keycard sequences.